Banned sweets are making their way into the UK
Spain, records and organised crime recruitment challenges.
Dear Reader,
Depending on who you ask, most of us spend at least a third of our waking lives looking at screens. We have these weird little portals into which we stare on the train, in the office, on the sofa and, when we’re feeling particularly dysfunctional, at the dinner table.
It’s hard to know what to do with this information. Should we minimise the time we spend looking into these portals, or just maximise the quality of what we do on them? There’s a homogeneousness to screens, the spectrum of experience is far narrower than that of the real world. A picture of the sea will never be the same as being in the sea.
On the other hand, the access to information, art and other people makes it seem like screens are a step on our evolutionary journey. One can only assume it took early humans a while to get to grips with fire, no doubt a few caves were burnt down and thumbs scorched. It feels like we’re at that stage now. In a thousand years people will look back at and pity us Neanderthals for giving ourselves Repetitive Strain Injury with things called ‘mice’ and spending all day moving numbers around in Excel.
Yabadabadoo,
Hugo
Chief Screen Sharer
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
Spain is outperforming the rest of Europe 🇪🇸 - while many countries are struggling to grow, the Spanish economy grew by 3.2% in 2024 through a combination of tourism (94 million visitors last year), investment and immigration. The only issue is that people are pretty fed up with English people coming over to drink pints of Stella and eat fry ups so this might impact tourism in the future.
OpenAI rejects Musk’s $97.4bn bid 🫷 - the meddlesome billionaire has been trying to prevent the owners of ChatGPT from moving to a for-profit status. He claims this is for the benefit of humanity, but it can’t be a complete coincidence he owns a for-profit competitor. The bid has been seen as an attempt to force their hand but the board unanimously voted not to accept it, saying ‘OpenAI is not for sale’.
Activist investors still fiddling with UK PLC - private equity firms have been snapping up UK companies over the past couple of years and alongside this, they are buying up shares in companies like BP to force the management to make changes. Elliott Management has built up a stake of nearly 5% in BP in a bid to get them to stop spending so much on green energy and make some major divestments. Greta would not be happy.
Colombia is proposing to ban Escobar merchandise 🇨🇴 - it’s a weird thing that some people like to wear pretty questionable human beings on a t-shirt. I think I may have owned a top with a picture of moustachioed mass murderer Che Guevera during a teenage socialist phase. Quite rightly, the government in Colombia has decided it’s not a good vibe to have a prolific narcotics trafficker as a major cultural symbol.
John Lewis is partnering with Rough Trade to sell records ⏺️ - this will be music to the ears (again, quite literally) of all the centrist dads who can buy their sweaters and vinyl in the same place! Record players have been flying off the shelves at the department store so it makes sense for them to stock a bit of Chappell Roan alongside. What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Pakistan wants to electrify its one million rickshaws 🛺 - the government is targeting 30% of all new vehicles to be electric by 2030. This is of course delightful for BYD, which is planning to open its first factory in South Asia. Sazgar is expected to lead production however, as it is a Lahore-headquartered company that has made traditional rickshaws for decades and currently holds 30% of the market.
Contraband sweeties are entering the UK in big quantities 🍭 - social media is driving demand for things like Jolly Rancher Hard Candy, Swedish Fish and Prime Hydration. These contain substances banned in the UK like brominated vegetable oil, bleached flour and Tartrazine. It’s unbelievable this nonsense is allowed anywhere, God bless reasonably high food standards.
The Port of Shanghai had a record month in January 📦 - it processed 5 million containers which is likely to drop off considerably given all the tariffs that have come into play over the past couple of weeks. This follows a record year which saw the port become the first one to process 50 million in a year.
Pubs are getting in on the breakfast action 🍳 - last year Spoons became the nation’s fifth-largest breakfast provider, overtaking Starbucks. People are spending less money in the evenings and more in the mornings so it is unsurprising that the likes of Spoonies is seeing the benefit of this; “come on darling, it’s good value and I’m pretty sure they do granola or something!”
Even the Mafia are struggling to recruit good candidates 🥸 - the bosses of Cosa Nostra were heard complaining about the ‘miserable’ calibre of recruits on a wiretap ahead of a massive raid. They’ve been trying to rebuild after a wave of crackdowns but they clearly need to work on the recruitment pipeline, as the new ones are all just getting arrested and becoming informers.
Quote of the week
“Some things we forget. But many things we remember on the mental screen, which is the biggest screen of all.” - David Lynch